1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method for managing a plurality of processors as devices. In particular, the present invention relates to a system and a method for applications to directly access a plurality of processors using device-oriented instructions.
2. Description of the Related Art
In most multiprocessor systems, access to the processors is facilitated through the operating system, which is executing on one or more of the processors (typically the main processor). Applications typically are unaware of a computer system's processor configuration. When an application requests the execution of a process, the operating system determines which of the multiple processors is to execute the process. In addition, the operating system determines when and if to swap a process executing on a particular processor for another. A programmer typically does not have direct control of a computer system's processor resources.
There are many instances when a programmer would like to have direct access to each of the available processors. In gaming applications, for example, programmers are always searching for the most direct control over a computer system's resources and in particular a computer system's multiple processors.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method that could provide a programmer with such direct access to the multiple processors of a computer system. The system and method should provide a programmer with access to the multiple processors similar to the access a programmer has to other devices connected to the computer system such as printers, disk drives, and the like.